Tag Archives: Ekiti

Permit me to quote one of your concluding remarks, “Like a twin emotion of burying a brother very close to heart and welcoming a newborn son into this world at the same time, Nigerians remain in the precarious oscillation of looking forward to a brighter future and looking into the dire present that promises no golden future.” As much agreement that I may have with that perception, it should be clearly noted that it cannot be all sad tales with Nigeria; not in the past gory days of military headship, the Jonathan days of Sodom and definitely not now. However, the message is quite obvious and succinctly delivered in that statement. The paradoxes of life’s dynamism! Continue reading →

How best can I express my disappointment in our dispositions as a nation than this little space afforded me to ventilate on issues beyond my power to alter? It is true, what you said in your last letter, that we take one minion step forward and two giant ones backwards. Your allegory about the driver and his passengers was on point with prejudice to the Nigerian state and its unpalatable leadership cum followership trail. If the passengers see nothing wrong in the reckless drive of their driver, I am afraid there is little or nothing to be done to avert a doomed journey. How much of our negligence and complacency are responsible for the wantonness of our leaders? How much of our indulgence renders leaders unaccountable? And just how much of our sycophancy Continue reading →

“Inspiring scenes of people taking the future of their countries into their own hands will ignite greater demands for good governance and political reform elsewhere in the world, including in Asia and in Africa.” – William Hague.

While the statement above is true, so much needs be done by the people of Nigeria, Continue reading →

“How good and how pleasant it would be, before God and man to see the unification of all…”
– Bob Marley, Africa Unite.

That a man is amongst many connections a son, a brother, a friend, a classmate, a colleague, an uncle, a community leader, a tribesman, a state man, a country man… His many affiliations are brought into play at different levels of his life but let me share this experience of mine with you.

I know a big farmer. His primary goal is to ensure everything works not because his other investments are not yielding good returns but he made me understand that if he closes down the farm the aftershock will be greater than what ordinary eyes can behold. That made me cherish his ingenuity and zeal in ensuring that everything works even though it wasn’t that smooth running; such a large farm, especially with the diverse expertise that he needed to run it efficiently. So he sent his relatives to acquire skills in one Continue reading →

It will be gubernatorial elections tomorrow. No doubt, I will urge everyone to go out en masse, just as we did during the Presidential Elections, and cast our votes for any candidate of our choice. Nobody is going to drown especially if you take caution and do not go near the lagoon if you cannot swim.

Please and please, stop degrading the palace of The Oba of Lagos. We all have failed to realize that there is no superhuman. What happened was just an act of the gods as it occurred to me that someone had been sharing in the drink of the deities for a long time but the day in question was just the day of reckoning.

The task before us is to make a choice of who will govern our states. And I wouldn’t want us to be carried away by any side attraction or distraction. Continue reading →

My recent trip to Jos (J-town) of Nigeria was an eye-opener. I was hitherto, insignificantly, aware of the magnitude of what I did not know. And at the end of my stay in Jos, en route the humble source of mankind, Ile-Ife, I remembered the words of my loving grandfather, Moses Olaonipekun Akinyode, which he somewhat usually belched out after a protracted meditation, “Nigeria: we ‘hate’ thee”.

Jos is a country other than a city in a state within a country, with her own laws, people and (guess I’m wrong) weather. If anyone is in a hurry (and wouldn’t await my views) to deconstruct that claim, he or she should pay, even if a few days, visit to this lovely city (which I’m certain represents several others within Nigeria). Continue reading →

“We are sitting under a cloud of heavy embarrassment, shame of the feeling of dereliction, sullen responsibility towards children. We are sitting under a cloud of impotence, of a calamity that was not without notice, and whose myriad causes is quite discernible. We are here because of education because we will never stop learning till death. This cloud is made up of a sense of humiliation. We sent our children on an errand and they did not return. The errand is what we are celebrating today. The errand was to prepare the children for today but they never came back, that is what we cannot allow ourselves to forget.” – Wole Soyinka, speaking at the 2014 Foundation Day Anniversary and Convocation Ceremonies of the University of Ibadan, where he was honoured with Doctor of Letters honourary degree.

Everywhere you turn in the country, there is that cloud that seems to block the sights and ultimately settle on the sheaf of hair that conceals the brain. Especially now that it’s harmattan season, anyone would see the fog.

As if that was not enough to prevent clear, penetrating sight that goes beyond the immediate, we all produce all manners of smoke and contribute to the heavy cloud that we sit under; smokes from assorted cigarette brands, exhausted cloudy or sometimes blackish fumes from exhaust pipes, firewood smokes and the leftover ashes and so on. Continue reading →